Since I responded to and argued against the OP's specific assertion, "Seems pretty clear that we're on a path to machine intelligence," your reintroduction of Fermi paradox, even if it is the subject of the article, still becomes OT in response to my comment, which has nothing to do with Fermi Paradox. In fact, I agree with you that it doesn't matter that machines will never be conscious, I'm just not going to get sucked into arguing about Fermi Paradox because I don't have any position on it. And I might as well argue, "so what? The pizza's here."